The Prime Ministers of Japan and India, Shigeru Ishiba and Narendra Modi, agreed this Friday to strengthen their cooperation in economic and security matters by increasing investments and personnel exchanges in the next decade.
Meeting in Tokyo in what is Modi’s first visit to Japan in two years and the first in seven years to hold a summit with a Japanese leader, Ishiba and Modi discussed a “shared vision” to harness India’s growth potential and the possibilities that their cooperation can bring for the revitalization of Japanese rural communities.
During a press conference at the Kantei, the Japanese central government headquarters, after their meeting, the head of the Japanese Executive emphasized New Delhi’s potential and its international role amid the current challenges and uncertainties.
India faces a complex scenario amid renewed tension with the United States, which has imposed 50% tariffs on the power’s products, and Japan seeks Delhi to play a bridging role in its vision of an ‘economic zone’ of the Indo-Pacific and Africa.
In the appearance, the Japanese leader announced that his government will increase the ceiling of Japanese investment in India to 10 trillion yen (about 58.27 billion euros) in the next ten years, with a special focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, and will increase personnel exchanges to half a million people.
Of these, 50,000 would be Indians displaced to the Japanese archipelago as skilled labor in areas such as science and technology.
Both leaders also announced during the press conference, in which no questions were accepted, several initiatives on climate, promotion of artificial intelligence and the stability of supply chains, with special emphasis on key materials such as semiconductors and rare earths.
Also, Ishiba and Modi announced a review of the security cooperation pact that their countries signed in 2008, to expand military exercises between their armed forces, in the current climate of tension in the Middle East and instability in the Indo-Pacific, they indicated in several of the eleven documents signed during the meeting, in a veiled reference to China’s assertiveness.
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Among other joint projects, Ishiba and Modi pledged this Friday to strengthen their countries’ cooperation also in space matters and, specifically, in a mission to search for water at the Moon’s poles.
